In many industries, planning for equipment and product maintenance currently involves the manual collection of data from a number of disparate sources and requires the analysis of the maintenance requirements of the equipment and/or product by those with relevant knowledge of the equipment and/or product to thereby identify resource requirements and schedule maintenance at a high level within an enterprise. Most of the data sources for maintenance planning exist in paper form and some are semi-automated. During times of high tempo operations, however, little or no time exists for the orderly collection and evaluation of problem data and the planning process becomes a response to individual equipment/product needs for its immediate use.
As equipment and product support requirements evolve over time, the enterprise must make the optimum use of scarce support resources. For example, in the aircraft industry, in times of war, as the military's operational resources (e.g., aircraft) degrade, the support system will be called upon to direct limited theater support assets to the site of specific aircraft where the most operational benefit will be realized. In this regard, the support system, including individual aircraft maintenance planning, must evolve with the aircraft it is supporting.